PolyThinking Celebrated as Faculty Honored for Patent Licenses

The ingenuity that has been synonymous with Polytechnic and the Power of PolyThinking was honored at a campus-wide rewards celebration honoring 14 faculty members whose patents were licensed for over $1million. “These faculty members have led the way,” said President Jerry Hultin, “in making Brooklyn and Poly famous as a hub of technological innovation.”

James C. Paat (l) and Jerry Hultin.

Entrepreneur James C. Paat, president and CEO of Sypherlink and the keynote speaker at the event, urged the faculty and students to not stop with invention. “Keep pushing the envelope,” he said, “innovation and creativity are key to financial and market breakthroughs.” Paat is the founder of two information management companies, and the software he developed has been awarded Product of the Year and Technology of the Year by Tech Columbus. Paat and Polytechnic are involved in a joint research project through the University’s Brooklyn Enterprise on Science & Technology and Technology Transfer Center.

The honorees were: Janice Aber, instructor, chemical and biological sciences; Stephen Arnold, university professor, physics; Henry Bertoni, former head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Jonathan Chao, head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; Nirod Das, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Bruce Garetz, head of the Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences; David Goodman, professor of electrical and computer engineering; Mark Green, professor of chemical biological sciences; Ramesh Karri, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering; Farshad Khorrami, professor of electrical and computer engineering; I-Tau Lu, professor of electrical and computer engineering; Shivendra Panwar, director of Poly’s Center for Advanced Technology in Telecommunications; Keith Ross, professor of computer and information science; and Yao Wang, professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Stavroula Sofu and Jerry Hultin.

President Hultin paid special tribute to Stavroula Sofu, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering and one of six recipients of the James Watson Award. Sofou was awarded a $200,000 research grant from the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research, to develop novel “tunable” liposomes for improved delivery of chemotherapeutic agents. Hultin praised Sofu as a brilliant young scientist and a rising star in biotechnology research.

Erich Kunhardt and Jerry Hultin

Erich Kunhardt, Poly’s new provost and chief academic officer, was presented with a citation commending his illustrious career as an inventor of plasma technology and as an educator whose commitment to creating a distinctive community of higher learning extols inventiveness and innovation. “Here at Poly we are inventing,” he said, “and that is rare in academia. This is very exciting.”

The Rewards of PolyThinking: A Celebration of Ideas, Invention and Innovation was held in the Dibner Auditorium on January 30.